Anna is Alone
by The Living Hobnail
Summary: Kate Corrigan takes in her recently orphaned neice, but meets with more difficulties than she expects.


"Oh my god." Dr. Kate Corrigan whispered hoarsely. "Oh my god." She pulled the phone away from her face and stared at it in shock for a few seconds, then snapped it back to her ear. "I'll be over as soon as I can… Okay… Okay. Bye." Kate shut her cell-phone and put it in her bag while gathering up her coat and papers. Dashing out and fumbling for the key to lock the door, her papers spilled out from under her arms. Swearing, she locked the door and got on her hands and knees and picked them up again. She yanked herself up and walked briskly to the Secretary's office, where she addressed an elderly woman behind a neatly kept desk.

"Myrle, hi." She said, forcing a smile and a warm voice. " Tell Manning I've got to take the rest of the day off, it's a family emergency." The woman looked at her with a serene stare before nodding and writing it down on a piece of paper.

Kate turned on the car radio in an effort to calm herself. However, all she got was static, and one station which played country music, none of which calmed her the least bit, never mind made her more uptight. After a few hours, she took a swig of cold coffee, and put on a tape.

After six hours of non-stop driving, Kate came upon a small gas station and refilled her tank while asking for directions. Oswald Lake was another three hours away. Kate sighed and paid the man money for a small bag of chips and the gas she had pumped. The dark-skinned man nodded warily at her and watched as she drove away and into the dark, deserted highway surrounded by thick forest.

A few hours later she got a call on her cell phone.

"Hey Kate." A scratchy voice greeted her.

"Hey Liz."

"How far are you from Oswald Lake?"

"Um… five minutes maybe. Are they…?"

Elizabeth Sherman was quiet for a second, and Kate could hear a siren in the distance.

By the time Kate got there, the area was swarming with police and several BPRD officers were there, along with Liz. Liz walked up grimly but calmly to Kate, looking and sounding exhausted.

"Kate."

"Liz, is she-?

"No, she's alive, but I'm afraid your brother and his wife have passed on. There are some…circumstances… about this particular case we need to discuss with you. Come with me."

"From what we have found out from your niece, the involved, and what we've pieced together, your brother and his family were attacked in the dead of night, when they were sleeping. Your sister-in-law woke to the smell of smoke and found that her house was on fire. She woke everyone up, and they rushed out of the house to find a reasonably large amount of men in front of their house, throwing burning pieces of wood through the window. When they saw the family, they grabbed them, and raped your niece and her mother, and forced your brother to watch while pinning him down."

Kate had subconsciously placed her hand over her mouth.

"Oh my god." Was all she could manage to get out.

"I'm sorry Kate." Liz said, putting an arm around her comrade's shoulder and leading her back to her car. "Look, Kate. There are some things we found particularly-different- about your niece. Can you tell me everything you know about your brother and his family?"

Shaking Kate nodded.

"Um. He's only- he was only a-a year older than me. We got into a fight before his wedding and I ended up not going. H-He and his wife were into spiritualism a lot, I remember coming over here almost a year after the wedding to mend our relationship and finding them conducting a full-fledged séance in the middle of their living room." Kate stopped and grabbed a Kleenex out of her purse, loudly blowing her nose with it. " It was interesting to me at the time, and we talked about it a lot over the phone. His wife didn't like me at all. She-she would get really cold and sour whenever I was around. Especially around the time she was pregnant. I-I ended up losing most of my contact with them after the baby was born. Oh god." Kate started gently crying while sitting herself down on the hood of her car.

"Kate, we need you to stay in town for a few days while we get this settled, okay?"

Kate nodded her head and took another blow on the tissue.

"We also need you to be aware of your niece's dilemma. She keeps on saying that her parents wanted her to live with you if anything happened to them. She kept on asking for you before she slipped into a coma. The doctors at the scene said she'd be out of it soon."

"What? I-I can't take care of a kid! I-I've never even met her!"

"We'll see if any of her other relatives are willing to take her in, then."

Liz patted Kate on the shoulder and turned around to leave, but quickly swung backwards and gave Kate an intense look.

"Kate, are you aware of anything odd about your niece?" She asked quietly. Kate tearfully shook her head no. "Kate, we found a ten foot python four feet from the scene underneath a log. She was screaming that it was hurt, Kate. When she moved too far away from it she lost a lot of blood."

"What do you mean she lost a lot of blood?"

"Well," Liz started slowly, "It turned out the snake had a long gash on it's side, and she did too. The farther away she got from it, the wider the gash became and the more blood was lost. We got her about seven meters from it and she slipped into the coma."

Kate was silent for some time, looking down at her shoes. Wiping her eyes and smudged makeup, she responded:

"Where is it now?"

"We didn't know what to do with it, because it ended up slipping into a coma as well. At almost the same time. You're the expert, what's going on with your niece?"

"...I think she may have a spirit familiar..."

"Which is?"

"A spirit which has taken on animal form and physically and mentally bonded with it's companion... at least, that seems the most likely right now... Where's the snake?" Kate stood up immediately.

"The ambulance technicians wouldn't go near it. Some of our men put it in the trunk of one of their pickups."

"No! That's not good. If it is her familiar, it needs to be by her side, or she won't get out of that coma."

"Shit. Okay, I'll go track it down and smuggle it into the hospital." Liz immediately went for her car and started using the radio device attached to the front windshield.

"Where's the hospital?"

"Follow behind me in your car!" Liz quickly yelled as she got into her car, and as Kate bolted into her own.

"Oh god, it's heavier than I thought." Kate grunted as she lifted the large snake's torso and tried to carry it by herself. Shaking her head, Liz shouldered the head and helped Kate rush into the hospital.

"Hey! HEY! You can't go into here with that thing!" was all Kate caught out of the huge uproar the hospital staff and patients were causing as she and Liz ran down the hallways carrying the unconscious snake on their shoulders.

"Shit. Which floor is she on?" Liz mumbled as they lugged up to the second floor out of three in the hospital.

"You don't know what floor she's on???" Kate panted in a panicked voice.

"Well, I assumed that we'd be greeted at the door, but I guess not."

"Fu-" Kate stopped as the snake shuddered. Resisting her reaction to drop it, she and Liz kept on going forwards, bursting through the doors of the second floor and running down the hallway. Without any warning whatsoever, the snake writhed uncontrollably. Kate screamed and dropped it this time.

"She's on the second floor alright." Kate announced.

"Hurry up and pick it back up again then."

"Fine, fine, I'm going."

The writhing snake became more and more alive as they approached the third door to their left in the corridor. A sharp girl's scream cut through the air as they emerged into the room, holding the snake, which twisted its way out of their grasp and slammed onto the ground, moving at a strangely high speed towards the last bed in the room. Several physicians yelped and moved out of the way as it slid up the bed and onto the hysterically sobbing preteen, coiling around her now up right torso and wrapping itself so she and it were one. The girl rhythmically rocked herself back and forth, crying and caressing the snake entwined around her. Kate observed the scene in front of her in a surreal point of view. Her niece... had been raped... and was now orphaned... with a snake around her... and doctors trying to reach out to her and help, but the snake's hisses kept them far away.

"Jeremy." The girl moaned as the snake slid up and struck out at an advancing nurse. "Jeremy, don't. Don't." Her words became more blurred with every passing second and every incoming advance from anyone, regardless of their position. Kate didn't know what she was doing, she didn't realize she was advancing towards the hysteric pair until she reached out and was quickly attacked by the snake. Her niece started screaming again as she saw the blood issuing forth from the large wound the snake's fangs had made.

"I thought she would never quite down." Liz murmured as she and Kate shared a coffee while observing the girl and her snake from a glass window. The girl's tears had dried up, and she was crying now with her body. The wound was still evident on both of them, but the snakes was healing up quickly.

" Is that normal for familiars?" Liz asked Kate, referring to the rapidly healing wound.

" Yep. Whatever happens to their human counterpart also affects them."

"So the stitches she got are also closing up it's wound."

"Yeah."

"Handy."

The two were silent for some time as they watched the girl in the padded psychiatric room finish up crying.

"I don't like that they've moved her here." Kate mumbled.

"They'll move her out again once she and her snake are calmer and less of a freaking danger to everyone around."

"Hm."

The girl suddenly laughed, albeit weakly, while looking at the snake. Nodding her head, she lay down and curled herself into a ball, the snake curled up against her chest.

"They're talking, aren't they..." Liz said quietly.

"I-I think so."

"Hey there. Hey. I'm your Aunt. I don't know if your parents ever told you about me, but my name's Kate, your dad is...was my older brother." Kate said as gently and as friendly as she could muster from the food-slot of the cell.


End file.
